Late last month, EU Home Affairs commissioner Cecilia Malmström announced the resumption of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP), under which American counterterror investigators have consulted and analyzed selected data on international bank transactions originating in Europe. The resumption of the program had been held up by the need for the EU to appoint a [...]

In what is sure to be celebrated as a diplomatic victory for the Obama administration, the European Parliament voted today to approve a revised version of the so-called SWIFT agreement on bank data sharing. The agreement will permit the resumption of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP). Under the program, which is [...]

The boisterous run-up to the European parliament vote last month leaves no doubt about the leading role played by German MEPs of all political persuasions in killing the EU-US SWIFT agreement on bank-data sharing for counter-terror purposes. In light of the recent purchase by German tax authorities of stolen Swiss bank data, the German opposition [...]

From an American perspective, it might be thought that European “leftists” brought down the SWIFT agreement, which would have permitted American investigators to continue inspecting selected European bank transfer data as part of the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (TFTP). But a review of events leading up to last week’s European parliament vote shows that it [...]